8900eec3   
   XPost: comp.sys.mac.advocacy, alt.os.linux.mandrake, comp.os.linux.advocacy   
   XPost: alt.os.linux.redhat   
   From: Nowhere@spamfree.com   
      
   In article   
   ,   
    Tim Smith  wrote:   
      
   > In article ,   
   >  Randy Howard  wrote:   
   > > > You're forgetting two major items:   
   > > >   
   > > > 1. Having the OS on x86 isn't any help at all. You also need all the   
   > > > apps to be ported.   
   > >   
   > > Anyless they're written in assembly, that shouldn't be hard at all   
   > > if they use any reasonable standard programming language, and one   
   > > for which Apple migrates development tools.  They have gotten   
   > > lazy in a few places and made assumptions about byte order or word   
   > > size, but that's just bad code that they happened to get away with   
   > > and should be fixed.   
   > >   
   > > Anything written at a reasonably high level and by competent   
   > > developers will be quick to port, provided all of the underlying OS   
   > > features are there on both CPUs.   
   >   
   > How do you get those developers to produce that port?  Think back to   
   > Windows NT.  The NT 4 CD had x86, PPC, Alpha, and MIPS versions on it.   
   > However, down at the CompUSA, there was maybe one or two NT app that had   
   > anything other than x86 binaries included (or even available for order).   
   >   
   > The only cases I can think of where a platform has had real success on   
   > different CPUs is when almost all the applications used on that platform   
   > are open source, so the users can compile them, rather than depending on   
   > the developer to make them available.   
      
   Solaris would be the only exception to your rule that I can think of.   
      
   NT on Alpha had some very limited success, as well.   
      
   But in general, you're right. Releasing OS X on x86 would be a disaster.   
   It would be far easier for developers to tell the customer to run the   
   Windows version of the app under a VM or to dual boot than to port their   
   apps.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)